


Indemnity

by Siria



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve McGarrett versus day-to-day life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indemnity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cate's Hawaii Five-0 Fandom Blowout.

It's ten on a Monday morning—not normally rush hour in an insurance agency, so Mark's letting himself ease into the work week. He's got some music on, he's making progress with the paperwork backlog that's built up since they had to let Janice go, and he's idly contemplating what he's going to order at Starbucks come lunchtime when the front door opens.

Mark looks up to see a guy stalk in—six feet, easily, all biceps and neurotic energy and clothes that look like he got them from the depths of the sale rack at K-Mart. "May I help you?" Mark says, standing.

"Yeah," the guy says. He sounds more charming than he looks, but the way he's brandishing the sheaf of papers in his hand isn't reassuring. "I need to talk to someone about why your company is refusing to renew my insurance."

"Oh." Mark steels himself. He much prefers dealing with customers over the phone, especially the annoyed ones, but Ayame has the day off, so he guesses he has no choice. He pulls a spare chair over to his desk, invites the customer to take a seat, calls up the customer database on his screen. "How exactly can I help you, Mr...?"

"Commander," the guy says. "Commander Steven McGarrett."

"Oh. Um." Mark's hands still on the keyboard. No need for him to access the database. He knows exactly who this man is; he'd run the cost calculations himself. "Commander McGarrett, it wasn't so much that we refused to renew your insurance as the fact that your premium would have been so totally prohibitive as to—"

"I've never been refused insurance before," McGarrett says, jaw tightening. "I have an excellent prior record."

"With respect, Commander," Mark says, "Up to this past year, as you indicated on your application forms, you didn't have private car insurance because of your employment in the armed forces."

McGarrett shrugs easily. "Sure. No need for a car where I was."

"And prior to that, the last time you had private car insurance was for two years from the age of 17 onwards, where you were a registered driver on your aunt's station wagon in suburban California."

"I don't see how this is relevant," McGarrett says.

Mark sighs, calls up the database on his screen after all. "Your insurance premium for the last year was based on a very different set of statistical assumptions. For this year, we would be required to factor in the three separate claims you've filed to have bullet holes repaired in your truck in the last six months alone. There were also the expenses accrued when the truck had to be recovered from a ravine—"

McGarrett rolls his eyes. "It was barely even a valley. An incline. Jeez, you sound like Danny."

"A _small_ ravine. Several claims were filed against you by other drivers for damage caused by you driving at excessive speed—"

"It wasn't excessive speed!" McGarrett says. "It was exactly the amount of speed being required by those cases at that particular time!"

"—and that's even before we get to the fact that two of our regular body shops refuse to accept work on any vehicle of yours anymore, because of the small matter of the grenade and the knife."

"Knives," McGarrett says. "No point in carrying around only _one_ knife with you. That'd be dumb, right?"

Mark stares at him. He has the terrible, terrible feeling that McGarrett thinks he's being helpful.

"Right," Mark says slowly. "Look, even if I give you the maximum state employee discount, which you'd normally need ten years of service to earn..." He enters some figures and turns the monitor around so that McGarrett can see the quoted premium. "It's still pretty high."

McGarrett's eyebrows quirk upwards. "That's not high. That's the annual GDP of _Ireland_."

"I'm very sorry, Commander," Mark says, "but that's honestly the best I can do." He chances a smile at the man, trying to defuse the situation before it gets any more tense. He's sure that McGarrett is a fine, upstanding member of the United States military, but there's something about the way the muscles around his eyes twitch that makes Mark feel a little nervous. He aims for a joke. "You know, I think it would actually be cheaper for you to insure a tank, given the way you go through vehicles. Ahaha. Ha."

McGarrett cocks his head to one side, as if he's considering. "Well," he says. "Okay, thank you"—he pauses to peer at Mark's name tag—"Mark. You've been very helpful."

"Anytime," Mark says weakly, standing when McGarrett stands. He feels like he's just avoided a deeply unpleasant experience, for reasons he doesn't quite understand but is glad for anyway. "You have a nice day," he tells McGarrett's departing back, and collapses back into his desk chair, weak-kneed with relief. He's definitely going to get a venti when he goes to Starbucks—he normally tries to avoid that much caffeine after noon, but with the way his heart is beating right now, he thinks that's probably a moot point.

His afternoon is much quieter, his Tuesday back to normal with the return of Ayame, but Mark spills his hot chocolate all over his shirt on Wednesday when the office door flies open, banging against the wall, and some short blond man marches in. He's wearing a tie that's flapping in the breeze, and he's practically vibrating with emotion. "Okay," the man declares, "okay! I'm going to ask this one time, and I'm going to ask this nice. Which one of you is the genius who put it into Steve McGarrett's head that it was appropriate to trade up from his truck to a _decommissioned tank_? Which one, hmm? Speak up, please, because I do not have all day, what with how Steve is currently trying to figure out how to park a tank on the lawn outside his house. Do you know how much attention you tend to get when you try to parallel park a tank in a suburban neighbourhood? Do you?"

Mark shakes his head in mute terror.

" _A lot_ ," says the guy. His hands move a lot when he speaks, as if his words have a physical heft that he’s trying to demonstrate to the world. "A _substantial amount_. Fox has a news truck parked down the street as we speak, trying to convince the good people of America that North Korea has finally decided to invade via the Aloha State, and I have a headache like you wouldn't believe. So understand me when I say that I have a _vested interest_ in finding the person who thought that Steve McGarrett is capable of processing metaphorical, allegorical, or any other form of language that's not monosyllabic and accompanied by simultaneous English-to-Kryptonian translation."

"Um," Mark says, dabbing at the spreading chocolate stain on his shirt, desperately trying to think of some plausible lie he can tell that will at least make this guy go be angry somewhere else. His mom was right, he thinks sadly—insurance sales are just too fast-paced a lifestyle for him. Maybe he really should think about calling it a day and moving back to North Dakota. Mom was telling him just the other week that his cousin Oscar had a nice line in hog sales. That had to be less stressful than calculating insurance premiums in Hawaii. "It sounds like maybe there's been some kind of misunderstanding, here," he says, trying not to let his voice crack from nerves. "Maybe?"

"Buddy," the angry guy says, shoulders slumping a little, "that is like the story of my life, believe me."

Funnily enough, Mark does.


End file.
